Meet the 2026 Awardee: Mona Alotaibi, MD
Mona Alotaibi, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, where she is a pulmonary vascular and critical care physician and physician-scientist.
Dr. Alotaibi’s research focuses on uncovering metabolic and molecular mechanisms underlying pulmonary vascular disease using high-throughput metabolomics and multi-omics integration, with a particular emphasis on pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). She leads a translational research program that integrates large-scale molecular profiling with deep clinical and physiological phenotyping across human cohorts and preclinical models. She established and led the UC San Diego Pulmonary Vascular Biobank, a resource designed to enable integrative, multi-omics investigation of pulmonary vascular disease.
Her work has identified novel metabolic pathways—including oxysterol and bile acid synthesis signatures—linked to disease severity and mortality in PAH and has led to the development of metabolomic risk scores that improve risk stratification beyond traditional clinical metrics. In parallel, she serves as Scientific and Operational Lead of the Metabolomics Core for a national longitudinal research network, where she oversees biospecimen pipelines, multi-platform molecular profiling, and high-dimensional data integration.
Her research is supported by the National Institutes of Health and the American Lung Association, among other funding sources.
Dr. Alotaibi received her medical degree from King Abdulaziz University, completed her internal medicine residency at Case Western Reserve University, and pursued fellowship and postdoctoral training in pulmonary and critical care, pulmonary vascular disease, and high-throughput metabolomics at UC San Diego.
Her work aims to move beyond conventional disease classification toward biologically defined endophenotypes and to translate multi-omics discoveries into clinically actionable tools to improve prognosis and guide therapy in pulmonary vascular disease.
Criteria
- Junior investigator at the rank of postdoctoral or medical fellow, assistant professor or equivalent
- RCMB Assembly membership, either primary or secondary
- Basic/translational researcher in the area of respiratory structure and function
- More than one first-authored paper in a well-respected journal
- Early career accomplishments and future promise
- Nominee’s current curriculum vitae including a list of nominee’s publications
- Nominator’s letter of recommendation
Nomination letter should describe nominees:
- Basic/translational research contributions and promise
- Independence or future potential for independence
- Involvement in ATS, including any involvement in RCMB Assembly
- Service to the broader scientific or medical community, if applicable
- Mentorship or teaching activities